This mini forum is intended to provide a simple means of discussion about the Altos Computer Systems ACS-8000 computer. If you want to share your own experience or memories, or add relevant information about this system: post a message!

I programmed one of these using dBaseII in the early 80s. It used the MPM operating system and could have several Televideo dumb terminals attached. It had a 10MB hard drive. I still have it! I''m starting to try to figure out how to sell it.

My father used one of these systems in his office for the food research laboratory he worked at in the late 70''s. I remember the 8" floppy drives were separate from the processor. There was a big blue CRT/keyboard terminal of unknown make, and a big floor standing Texas Instruments dot matrix printer. I believe the system was serial connected to several pieces of lab equipment. I was only 7 or 8 at the time, and this whole thing fascinated me, it was the cat''s meow.

Used an Altos 8000 running UCSD p-system natively in my first job back in ''84. 48k ram, split over 4 users with some shared memory for semaphores etc.
Needed to use overlays in p-system to handle the larger programmes. Each overlay had to have the same procedure names in the smae location to work.
I remember with the 20MB version you needed to toggle the on/off switch a few time to get the drive up to speed before it would boot from it.

My dad had one for his business but it had two 8" floppies and no HHD. I suspect it was much cheaper to have a second floppy rather than a HHD. I was about 12 or 13 at the time.

I learned BASIC and COBOL on it and ran CP/M as the operating system.

I think the reason he bought it was because Peachtree Accounting ran on it (not 100$ sure about this, but over the years, he stuck with Peachtree and I think it was because of backwards ''compatibility''. Eventually the data was transferred from the Altos to a Windows machine of some sort, but remained PeachTree)

My dad had one for his business but it had two 8" floppies and no HHD. I suspect it was much cheaper to have a second floppy rather than a HHD. I was about 12 or 13 at the time.

I learned BASIC and COBOL on it and ran CP/M as the operating system.

I think the reason he bought it was because Peachtree Accounting ran on it (not 100$ sure about this, but over the years, he stuck with Peachtree and I think it was because of backwards ''compatibility''. Eventually the data was transferred from the Altos to a Windows machine of some sort, but remained PeachTree)

The TCU-8 is not a computer but an 8 channel RS-422 asynchronous terminal multiplexor. Altos, Wyse or other RS-232 serial terminals were plugged into the connectors labeled 0-7. They could be daisy chained together. The address of the unit in the chain was set with the DIP switches.

I work as an ICT Technician at a Secondary School here in the UK. The caretaker bought in from home last week an Altos TCU-8 computer.

It has a row of LED''s at the front labelled 0 to 7, a bank of input connectors at the back also labelled 0 to 7, a larger input connector, kettle lead 3 pin power socket, on / off switch and a 5 row dip switch component.

Any information about this computer would be helpful. There''s nowhere to connect any type of TV, monitor or keyboard. The front row of LED''s look like something the Altair 8800 would have.

We used an altos 8000 system with
20 meg hard drive and 8 inch floppy
from 1982 to perhaps about 1989
they were 100% reliable all that time
and were obsolte long before being worn out.
They weighed about 80-88 pounds and
had something like 256 k of ram for
allegedly 3 or 4 users and the operating system
ran cpm and mpm on it, still remember "pip"
instead of copy. Had 8 megaherz cpu
Very very good quality machine.